


That Open Wound That Draws Everything to Itself

by gloss



Category: Scream Queens (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Misses Clause Challenge, Post-Series, millennial feminism: it's totally a thing, post-Freudian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 15:19:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5502617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The next meeting of the Wallace University Feminist Collective convenes. First order of business: renaming their merry band to the Palmer Asylum Association of Women.</p><p>Second item on the agenda: get out of here in one piece.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Open Wound That Draws Everything to Itself

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Neurofancier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neurofancier/gifts).



*

Hester has the uncanny ability to materialize soundlessly. She'll just turn up, often in your way, when you least expect it. 

Grace had thought she was in the kitchen, prepping for their big barbecue, but here she is. Blocking the front door, her hands wrapped tightly around the neck of a small game bird half-streaked with barbecue sauce, she almost looks angry. "Where are you going?"

Grace shrugs. "I'm visiting Chanel, remember?"

"I don't think you should do that." Hester wrings the bird's neck slightly, back and forth. She doesn't seem to notice that it's twisting, brushing, against her thighs, smearing dark sauce over her sensible Bermuda shorts. "I've told you that."

"I'm a big girl, Hester. I can make my own decisions." She grins as she slings her bag over her shoulder. 

"As your _sister_ \--" Hester has a very particular way of stressing both syllables in the word, almost hissing it, and something about that invariably makes Grace's stomach knot -- "I must ask you to reconsider. Begging here."

The way she's staring at Grace, her dark eyes so wide, her jaw set, it's almost impossible to resist her. She resembles a prophetess, Cassandra of KKT, desperate to help. Her lower lip is trembling.

Clasping Hester's shoulder, squeezing gently, Grace smiles. "I'll be okay, I promise. She can't hurt me, not there."

Hester opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. Grace gives her a quick one-armed hug before she hurries out the door.

*

The asylum's security has improved, slightly, since her previous visits. For one thing, there is some. A rickety tv-dinner table is set up just inside the main doors, staffed by a very bored looking guard.

"Sorry, you're not on the list."

"There's a list?" Grace tilts her head. "I guess that makes sense, what with their being murderers and all --"

"No, it's just a list."

"What kind of list?"

He shoves the piece of notebook paper, one long side still decorated with the frills of perforation. "Just a list."

It is written in looping purple cursive, without regard for the lines, tilting and ballooning off to the bottom:

### APPROVED VIPs FOR CHANEL OBERLIN: THE FINAL LIST

 **Disregard all previous lists!**  
Anna Wintour  
Solange  
Armie Hammer  
Andre Leon Talley (aka "Tante Andre")  
Ayumi Seto

### ...TO BE CONNTINUED THIS IS ****NOT**** OVER!!!!

"She only got to the A's, huh?" Grace hands the list back. "Plus Solange, but she should be at the top of every list. Remember how she stood up for her sister? She gave Jay-Z the beatdown."

The guard shrugs. "Guess so. Go on in."

Her sandals squeak a little on the floor as Grace ventures down one long hallway, then another. She passes closed doors, hears muffled voices and the tinkle of a piano, sometimes something like the babble of a brook, before she takes a left, then another left, and finally finds the main room. 

She's certain she came a different way last time. The route was much more direct, she remembers, out the big doors onto the front lawn in a matter of steps.

A small woman in a blue chenille bathrobe catches Grace's hand. "You're on the other side now."

"What's that?" she asks. "The other side of what?"

She has wispy white hair, like cotton balls, and rosebud-pink lipstick smeared around her chapped lips. She points at the windows, then at Grace, then, smiling, turns away.

"Sorry about that, Frieda's kind of totally out of it," Chanel says. "Like totally cuckoo for cocoa puffs."

She's standing between Grace and the rest of the room, arms crossed, light picking out a halo around her hair. Every inch still a queen, even if there's only 62 inches, which are wearing a pink flannel wrapper with pills and a poorly-mended rip on the hem.

"So. You came," Chanel continues, turning, clearly expecting Grace to follow her. "I just hope it's not too late."

"What do you mean? Too late for what?" Grace hurries after her, down the center of the cathedral-large room. The toe of one sandal catches in a broken tile, and she stumbles, but Chanel neither turns nor slows down.

When Grace catches up with her, Chanel is sitting on the edge of a narrow bed. She indicates a rickety wooden chair with a graceful turn of wrist and hand. "Please."

"Uh, thanks?" Grace perches on the very edge of the chair, afraid that it will collapse like matchsticks if she sits normally. "Too late for what, Chanel?"

As she looks Grace over, Chanel fingers the braid snaking over her shoulder. Her lips curl, not in a smile, but in an intricate whorl, its meaning obscure but elegant.

It's hard for Grace to believe, given everything they've been through, but somehow she had forgotten _this_. This feeling, state, mood, whatever you want to call it. This feeling of panic, held-breath, crystalline, delicate and suffocating all at the same time. 

The therapist her dad sent her to over winter break said that stress hormones rewire your brain. Grace isn't sure about that, but she's pretty sure that this is a flashback.

Or a premonition?

Maybe she never stopped feeling like this. Maybe this is how she's always going to feel, teetering on the edge of madness, swaying over the abyss.

"No," Chanel says at last, shaking her head slightly. "It's way too late. You're simply, irrevocably, _totally_ hopeless."

"Too late for...?"

"For _help_ ," Chanel says. "Birkenstocks and jorts? _Seriously?_ That --" She moves her hand up and down like Vanna White, indicating Grace from head to toe and then back up again -- "is what you wear to visit me?"

Grace runs her hand through her hair. "It's hot out, Chanel. I don't know what to tell you."

"Well, I wouldn't know, would I?"

"That it's hot?"

"What it's like outside." Chanel turns at the waist, chin on her shoulder, to gaze out the window. She even sighs, low and soft.

"They don't let you outside?" She'll have to check, but Grace would bet that sort of thing is illegal.

Chanel sighs again, more loudly this time, less "tragic heroine forbearing yet more trials", and far more "impatient diva sick of lesser, stupider mortals".

"So, what brings you by?" she asks, visibly changing, pulling on a new collection of postures, expressions, tones. Another role. She smiles tightly, leans forward, adds an inquisitive, "hmmm?"

She's playing hostess now, and Grace feels kind of bad about that. Guilty, and uncomfortable.

Then again, Grace has never felt fully comfortable around Chanel, and this is a big reason why. Chanel slips between roles so effortlessly that you're never, ever sure where you stand with her.

That probably should have been everyone's first clue about her.

Grace takes the bakery box out of her bag and hands it to Chanel. "I'm here to say happy birthday."

Hand on her throat, Chanel mock-gasps. Or true-gasps, who knows? "You remembered my birthday?"

"Sure I did. You're my sister."

Chanel's strangely dark eyes shimmer as tears well and she reaches out, grabbing Grace's hand and yanking her out of the chair, over onto the bed. Her hug is a little awkward but tight and, so far as Grace can tell, mostly sincere.

Grace brought three cupcakes, one for each Chanel, but the other two are nowhere to be seen.

"Where're Libby and Sadie?" she asks, drawing back so Chanel can open the box.

"Outside time," Chanel says distractedly as she tugs on the string.

"But you just said --"

Chanel gets the box open at last, but pushes it off her lap. "Oh, these are just from The Grind?" 

"Sorry," Grace says, "I thought they were really tasty --"

"Sure, for a two-bit college town that wouldn't know fondant if it coated their faces, I _suppose_ these are...adequate."

"Well, hey, it's the thought that counts, right?" Grace rescues one of the cupcakes, which is, admittedly, looking a little worse for wear, and breaks it in half. "Happy birthday, Chanel."

Rolling her eyes, Chanel accepts her half and tips it against Grace's in a mock-toast. "Happy b-day to me."

"So," Grace says as they pick at the slightly-stale cake and stiff frosting, "how are things?"

She hears how terrible that sounds and wants to apologize, but luckily Chanel is already answering.

She is excelling at occupational therapy, first of all. They've never seen lanyards and beaded friendship bracelets like what she produces with barely any effort. Furthermore, she's certain that her presence in all of her groups is both indispensable and beloved.

"People just really _listen_ to me, you know?"

"Well, you make sure of that," Grace says and gets a full, genuine grin from Chanel in response. 

Still grinning, Chanel grasps both of Grace's hands in hers. "I'm really glad you came."

"Of course," Grace says. That sharp, crystalline panic is long gone now, replaced by a shaky sort of relief. She squeezes Chanel's tiny, incredibly soft hands. "I'm glad, too. Tell me more about what you've been up to."

The last thing she wants is for Chanel to ask how she is, what she's been doing. There isn't much chance of Chanel's attention ever straying very far from herself, of course, but there is Kappa house to consider, and how important it is -- _was_ \-- to Chanel.

"My analyst says that I'm remarkable for having possibly the first case of pre-Oedipal excessive sadism on record."

Chanel delivers this news with a slight smile and ostensibly lowered gaze. She is, however, looking up through her lashes, studying Grace's reaction.

"Okay..." Grace wishes she had her notebook with her. Not so much to take notes as to record what to look up later.

"Everyone thought it was impossible, since sadism emerges after the break from identifying with the mother, but I did it!" Even though she's sitting, Chanel twirls a little, then mimes a curtsy.

"I didn't realize there were, like, Freudians here." The Palmer Asylum doesn't look like much: peeling paint, dingy shadows, expanses of cold, mismatched tiles. 

She should have investigated the place more deeply, she can admit that now. At the time, she was so wrapped up in finding out about her mother (and distracted by Pete's incredibly soft, kissable [ _homicidal!_ , she reminds herself] lips) that she cut too many corners.

"Freudian psychoanalysis is basically the _ne plus ultra_ of all psychology," Chanel says, rather primly. "You can't do better than the Viennese, whether that's pastries, waltzes, or therapy. And I only want the best. You might say I'm fairly fixated on that."

"It's pretty classic, that's true."

Chanel ticks her finger back and forth. " _Euro-_ classic."

"Isn't that weird, though?" Grace asks. "Digging through your past? Talking about it all the time?"

"I love it! What could be more interesting to talk about than me?"

"Point," Grace concedes.

"Thank you," Chanel replies, but then ruins the novelty of that by adding, "I'm working on being more gracious, isn't it great?"

"It really is."

Grace is out of questions. She's a terrible reporter, a worse sister, for running out so soon. Maybe one of the other Chanels will appear, or sad old Frieda will shuffle out of the shadows, give them something to talk about.

Having extracted the second cupcake from the box, Chanel is taking tiny fingertip-sized nibbles of frosting.

"Pass me that dixie cup, will you?" she asks when she notices Grace watching her.

Grace looks around helplessly. "The what?" 

"Are you _deaf_ or just dense?" Chanel reaches past her, elbow in Grace's right boob, for the small bedside table. "Apple. Juice. In. A. Cup."

Chanel retrieves two cups, one with juice, the other containing tablets and capsules. She pours those on to the bed, then shares out the juice into the second cup. 

"To sisterhood," Grace proposes and, despite rolling her eyes, Chanel tips the rolled paper rim of her cup against Grace's before tossing back the half-mouthful of warm juice.

"If I'd known you were coming, I'd've had some fermented."

"Oh, that's..." Grace looks down into the cloudy liquid. "That's not necessary, that's okay."

"No, no, it's no problem." Chanel tips her head against Grace's shoulder and wiggles a little closer.

"Should you take those pills, Chanel?"

"What, these? No, those are just, like. Suggestions."

"Suggestions," Grace echoes. Chanel is a warm pressure against her from shoulder to waist, to thigh.

They haven't been this close since they went to Dean Munsch's house. Since they tried to kill her.

"I love apple juice days," Chanel murmurs. "Prune juice is gross, and grape is so _ordinary_. Grapefruit's like battery acid. But apple juice is just right. Reminds me of --"

"-- Dean Munsch," Grace finishes for her.

Chanel blinks up at her. "Ew, why?"

Something sweeps through Grace -- she'd like to call it shame or regret, but those are too fancy. This is just plain embarrassment. She sits up straighter, trying to dislodge Chanel.

"Carpet Munsch?" Chanel says more loudly. "God, there are so many things I do not miss about the real world, but she's right at the top."

"Right, right, sorry --" Grace pushes hair out of her eyes and tries, again, to move away. But Chanel's bed is about as old as this building, the mattress sagging so they're tilting together, and short of standing up or pushing Chanel away, Grace isn't going anywhere.

"The cider!" Chanel tightens her arm around Grace's waist. "Oh, my god, totally, the cider!"

Embarrassment is still throbbing through Grace. She shifts a little and coughs into her free hand. "Yeah, the cider."

"That was --" Chanel is rarely at a loss for words, and Grace doesn't know whether to believe she is now, but she certainly seems to be pausing, searching for what to say. "That was amazing. I've never -- I mean, like --"

The words tumble from Grace, rapid and messy and desperate to cover up and move on. "It's okay, you don't have to say anything, it's all in the past."

"You remember, I know you do." Chanel is closer than ever, her arm around Grace's waist, pulling her in. Her whisper warms the skin of Grace's ear. She could be speaking from _inside_ Grace's skull, she's so close, this is so familiar.

"I do," Grace admits. Her mouth is dry, sticky. 

"That's something we're always going to have."

This remark could be a threat, or a promise, or simply an observation: with Chanel, it will most likely be all three, and then some.

"Right, you're right."

"I know I am," Chanel whispers, and now her lips are brushing Grace's skin. Ever closer, but how much farther can they go? Skin yields only so far. At some point, you'd have to break through --.

Grace gasps for air, gulps for it, claws at her throat. Chanel is laughing against her neck, arms looped tightly, mouth and teeth working. 

Memory after memory wells up in Grace's chest, from her gut, her heart, and they crowd inside her, shoving at each other, overlapping, bleeding together.

Faces of the dead and dying, chopped open, fresh from the oven, oozing and heaving or still and silent, so much death, so much gone empty.

"Just the two of us," Chanel says, firmly, almost dispassionately, holding tight while Grace shakes against her. 

They'd been connected that afternoon. Serving that cider, waiting for Munsch to react, Grace had never felt closer to someone than she did to Chanel. Like the reflection of a window in a puddle, several steps removed, indistinct, just a collection of brights and ripples, but unmistakably your own face: that's how close they'd been, how intimate, how _together_.

"Please let me go," Grace whispers, trying to push away. Pete's face, she sees him now, sees him begging, then smirking, feels all his oblivious malice and self-righteous bullshit all over again. 

She was so stupid. She's still so, so dumb. Is she ever going to learn?

"Can't let you go," Chanel replies, a while later, when Grace is quieter and stiller. Grace's pulse throbs in her temple, where the skin is nearly translucent, right against Chanel's lower lip. "Won't."

Soon enough, any moment now, Chanel's mood will change again, shift back into offhand narcissism or outright cruelty. She never remains in this kind of state -- open, calm, even kind -- very long at all. Even more rarely when she's not alone.

But this is something new to bring up in group, which has been getting sidetracked with Libby's food issues, and Dr. Schulman-Steiner will have a field day with overt lesbian sexuality.

So, all in all, Chanel can't say this has been a terrible afternoon.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks very much to my (for the moment) anonymous betas.
> 
> Title from Irigaray's **Speculum of the Other Woman** (1985), from her meditations on a passage in **Mourning & Melancholia**.


End file.
